Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 25, November, 1859

Whoever enjoyed Foresti's hospitality, in the conversations as well as the viands has found an epitome and reflex of his most genial hours in Italy: brave soldiers, like Avezzana and Garibaldi, scholars, artists, every form of the national character, were gratefully exhibited in reunions, of which he was the presiding genius, and to which his American friends were admitted with fraternal cordiality. It was then that his clear and strong mind often displayed itself with the spontaneity of his race.

Chastened, though unsubdued by misfortune, Foresti cherished a truly Christian spirit of forgiveness, and the liberality which large experience invariably fosters in enlightened minds: it was the system, rather than its agents, which he ever held up to condemnation in discussing the Austrian policy. Familiarity with American and English politics and the modern history of Europe induced a wise modification of his opinions on government; a fervent republican in sentiment, he yet recognized the radical benefits of a constitutional monarchy, like those of England and Sardinia. He was a natural orator, and, on several occasions, memorably addressed the public with rare eloquence and power on subjects of national or beneficent interest. During his long sojourn in New York, he was not merely the acknowledged representative of Italy, but her eloquent advocate, her wise expositor, her illustrious son, whose literature he memorably unfolded, whose history he sagaciously analyzed, whose misfortunes he tenderly portrayed, whose glory he proudly vindicated, and whose nationality he incessantly affirmed. Well did one of the leading Turin journals indicate the prevalent graces of his character:—"A pure and just man, he knew always how to appreciate those who dissented from him about forms of government, because he could discover in them the true love of nationality, to which Italy aspires. Wise without pretension, beneficent without ostentation, chaste in deed and word, exquisitely tender-hearted, he tempered the harsh lessons of experience by the unchanged serenity of his bearing."

Foresti was the most charming of correspondents; in a chirography almost feminine, he wrote, in the old cavalier style, such quaintly pleasant epistles, with graceful turns of expression, beautiful epithets, and appropriate adjectives, that, to one fond of the writer and cognizant of his native tongue, the most casual note was a prize to be treasured. "Truly," remarks one of his friends, "he was squisitamente affetuoso di cuore ," and now the sweetest proof thereof is to be found in his correspondence. In his two visits to Italy, he used to walk daily to the shores, when within reach of the Mediterranean, and salute, with tears, the bandiera stellata ,—as he called our national banner, under which his exile had been protected and honored.

The pleasure expressed at Foresti's consular appointment, as well as the high order of applicants in his behalf, afforded the best evidence of the friendship and interest he had awakened and maintained in a foreign land. On the shores of the Hudson, by the cliffs of Newport, under the elms of New Haven, as well as in the metropolis where he had so long dwelt, faithful hearts rejoiced at the announcement. "Few are aware," said Hillhouse, in his Eulogy on Lafayette, "how hallowed and how deep are their feelings who worship Liberty as a mistress they may never possess." And it was the constancy and intelligence of his devotion to her which won for him such peculiar regard; for he did not belong to the sentimental and spasmodic, but to the resolute and philosophic devotees at her shrine; his native taste was more wedded to the wise satire of Casti and the acute generalities of Vico than satisfied with the soft beauties of Petrarch or the luxurious graces of Boccaccio; the stoical Alfieri, more than the epicurean Metastasio, breathed music to his soul. "You belong," wrote Pellico to him, "you belong to those who to a generous disposition unite an intellect to see things wisely; never can I forget the gifts of genius and of courage developed in you in the days of misfortune." It was an auspicious sign of the times when the land which protected such an exile was represented by him in that of his nativity.

Brief, however, was Foresti's enjoyment of the distinction and resource thus secured for him through the considerate efforts of his American friends. "I write to you," says his last letter to one of them, dated immediately after the reception of his commission, "with my left hand pressed on a heart overflowing with gratitude for the means thus honorably afforded to solace the last years of the old prisoner of Spielberg." Three months after, that noble heart ceased to beat; an effusion on the chest, which ultimately defied the best medical skill and the most assiduous friendly devotion, ended fatally on the morning of the 14th of September, 1858, "By his death," said one of his eulogists, "is broken one of the links that bind the New World to the Old"; and as if to evidence the sympathy of mourners in two hemispheres and attest the varied associations which embalm the example and memory of Foresti, his funeral was typical of his life, and so illustrative of his character, that we can imagine no peculiar honor wanting, grateful to the patriot, the liberal, the martyr, or the man. In that ancient city of Genoa, of old renowned for commercial glory and maritime valor, the birthplace of the discoverer of the land of his adoption, now the refuge of more who had sacrificed all for their country, and the state where that country's best prospects are centred and her highest aspirations cherished, in the home of the moral, civic, and social vanguard of modern Italy, he found a grave. The American flag was his pall; American mariners carried his bier; before it was borne the Cross. His remains were followed from the Piazza della Maddelena, through the principal streets and the Porta Romana to the Campo Santo, by the officers and crew of the United States frigate "Wabash," the captains of the American merchantmen in port, the Society of Operatives, the industrial representative of a progressive state, of which he was an honorary member, a vast multitude of emigrants from the less favored Italian provinces, and a numerous body of literary, official, and private gentlemen who enjoyed his personal friendship.

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